online geopolitical strategy game

For those interested in the development side of this project, I thought I’d write up some information about how the game is being developed. If you’re not interested in the technical side of things, you could always forego this post, or just skip to the fancy colorful diagram at the bottom.

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.Bill Gates

This will be a small update, as I’ve been working on many different parts of the game, but haven’t finished any major arcs, so I don’t have a big write-up lying around. Hence I’ve decided to show off some random, unfinished bits of the game.… →

Particracy is all about simulating modern national and global politics, turning all things political into an interesting and challenging game. To that end, it will feature considerable diversity of systems of government, so that players will more easily identify with their (ultimately fictitious) nations and its neighbors. The real world is obviously the main source of inspiration for political structures and systems that can find their way into game features, but the balance with gameplay and technical constraints has to be maintained. In this article, you’ll get some insight into the political systems that will make it into the game.… →

In Particracy, your party’s identity won’t just be a number in your country’s parliament. You’ll be able to actively construct your party’s campaign profile, and build your team of politicians. Your party’s politicians will have a name, personal traits to specify their strengths and weaknesses, and will grow old and retire at some point. You’ll be able to track their progress through the legislative and executive careers as you appoint them to high office or run them in elections. … →

An important way to make an imaginary world believable, is to present its geography with maps. The context of the game — national and international politics — demands believable geometry and necessitates good looking maps. In this article, I will explain a little more on how the underlying geometry of a Particracy world map is created. This article gets a little technical in the second half, so don’t say you weren’t warned.… →

Particracy is the title of an online strategy game I’m building. It’s a (geo)political simulation game, where players act out the role of political parties in a fictional game world. Parties gain seats in elections and vote on bills, thus defining their ideological stance. Coalitions can be formed to run governments, and policy can be enacted to change the course of nations.… →